Trump’s Venezuela Plan: Another “It Won’t Cost Us Anything” Fantasy

Donald Trump says the U.S. will run Venezuela “until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition.” There’s no plan for nation-building beyond handing the keys to American oil companies like Chevron. If that doesn’t set off alarm bells about cost and incompetence, it should.

It will take years and tens of billions of dollars to restore Venezuela’s crumbling oil fields. But Trump insists that won’t come from taxpayers because “the money coming out of the ground is very substantial.” He promises the oil firms will spend the money and we’ll “get reimbursed for everything that we spend.”

We’ve heard this before. George W. Bush said Iraqi oil would pay for his trillion-dollar war. It didn’t. Trump promised Mexico would pay for his wall. It didn’t.

Trump frames Venezuelan oil as something that was “stolen from us,” and this is simply restitution. But even if you buy that story, occupying and rebuilding a foreign nation is not a free lunch. Deployments, contractors, security, logistics, sanctions enforcement, and the inevitable “temporary” programs add up. They always do.

The oil companies, the true beneficiaries of the attack, stand to reap profits while the risks land squarely on the public. When things inevitably go badly, taxpayers pick up the tab. If things go well, we’re told to wait for reimbursements that history suggests never arrive.

Calling this a “war that pays for itself” doesn’t make it true. The biggest threat isn’t whether Venezuela’s oil flow. It’s whether America can afford another costly fantasy.

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